Roberts done with government shutdowns

“I’m done voting to shut down the government. I’m just done,” Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., told the Topeka Capital-Journal. Past shutdowns have been “terribly counter-productive,” he said, noting that “to get back up and running it costs even more money and they don’t last.” Roberts recalled the 1996 shutdown under then-Speaker Newt Gingrich: “That was three weeks. The first week we would say, ‘Stay the course.’ The second week we would say, ‘Are we sure we’re on the right course?’ The third week was, ‘How do I get off this course?’” – Phillip Brownlee